Roberta's

Roberta's, which opened in a converted industrial space on Moore Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2008, is the restaurant most credited with transforming that neighborhood from an overlooked post-industrial corridor into one of New York's most vibrant food and arts destinations. The restaurant's founding spirit was scrappy and unconventional: the space was raw, the menu was ambitious, and the wood-fired pizza was produced in ovens built by the founders themselves. Over fifteen years, Roberta's has evolved into a Bushwick institution while retaining the energy of a place that takes its cooking seriously without taking itself too seriously. The wood-fired pizzas are the heart of the menu: thin-crusted Neapolitan-inspired pies with distinctive house doughs, charred and blistered in the way only a wood oven achieves, topped with a roster of ingredient combinations that range from the classic margherita to the Bee Sting — fresh mozzarella, tomato, soppressata, chili, and honey, which achieves a perfect balance of heat and sweetness and has become one of the most replicated pie concepts in Brooklyn pizza. The restaurant also grows herbs and vegetables in a rooftop garden that supplies the kitchen directly, and the broader menu extends beyond pizza to include antipasti, salads, and seasonal vegetable preparations. The industrial dining room and outdoor space are perpetually full; the no-reservations policy means a wait is likely on weekends. A radio station operates from the premises. Additional locations in Manhattan and other neighborhoods have followed, but the Bushwick original remains the definitive Roberta's.